International Journal of Agricultural

Science and Research (IJASR)

ISSN(P): 2250-0057; ISSN(E): 2321-0087
Vol. 8, Issue 6, Dec 2018, 89-94
© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PERFORMANCE OF

NATURAL AND FORCED CONVECTION SOLAR

DRYER FOR DRYING FRUITS

NITESH PACHPOR1, PRITI P LAD2, VINOD ATOLE3 & ABHISHEK NIGADE3

1
Assistant Professor, Department of Renewable Energy and Technology, College of Agriculture Engineering and
Technology, Saralgaon, Dr. BSKKV, Dapoli, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Agriculture Process Engineering, College of Agriculture Engineering and
Technology, Saralgaon, Dr. BSKKV, Dapoli, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India
3
Under Graduate Scholars, College of Agriculture Engineering and Technology, Saralgaon, Dr. BSKKV,
Dapoli, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India
ABSTRACT

Drying is a water removal process from foodstuffs commonly used for preservation and storage purposes.
Fruits and vegetables are the most important products in agriculture sector. As its contents of nutrition are very high, it

Original Article
has to be preserved. Keeping the products fresh is the best way to maintain its nutritional value. There are many methods
for this preservation, but drying process is the most common method of food preservation because it increases the
storage life. The moisture content in these product reaches, in some cases, more than 90%. Water content is considered
the main reason for micro organism growth, which leads to putrefaction. In this paper, the performance of a solar dryer
for fruit, using both natural and forced convection solar dryer, was investigated and compared. Drying rate, weight
losses, and removal of moisture content have been studied and analysed. A comparison between natural and forced
convection solar dryers has been done.

KEYWORDS: Drying, Solar Energy, Natural Solar Drying & Forced Solar Drying

Received: Oct 30, 2018; Accepted: Nov 20, 2018; Published: Dec 07, 2018; Paper Id.: IJASRDEC201813

INTRODUCTION

Solar energy is the most attractive and abundant form of renewable energy sources because it is free,
environmentally friendly and available most of the year. The most common and simplest application of solar
energy is to convert it into heat [1]. Nowadays, drying fruits and vegetables have received a great attention from
numerous of researchers worldwide because of the high nutritional value contained in this kind of food.
Various methods of preservation of fruits and vegetables such as drying, controlled atmosphere, canning,
dehydration, refrigeration are being used across the world. According to Hawlader et al [2] solar drying is the most
attractive methods used to preserve fruits and vegetables. It can eliminate wastage, increase the productivity of
agriculture, and improve the production of fruits and vegetables in term of quality and quantity. Drying is a process
of moisture removal from the product.

It can be achieved by various means like freeze drying, mechanical drying, Vacuum drying, thermal
drying and chemical drying [3]. The present study belongs to the category of thermal drying, which is used mainly

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90 Nitesh Pachpor, Priti P Lad, Vinod Atole & Abhishek Nigade

for drying of agricultural products and involves the removal of moisture from the material using thermal energy. Drying of
product is a complex combination of heat and mass transfer processes, which depends on external parameters such as
temperature, humidity and velocity of the air stream; drying material properties of the agricultural products such as surface
characteristics (rough or smooth surface), chemical composition, physical structure (porosity, density) [4]. The rate of
drying or moisture removal from the interior of the material is hygroscopic and non-hygroscopic. Hygroscopic materials
are those which will always have aresidual moisture content, whereas non-hygroscopic can be dried to zero moisture level.
Drying plays an important role in improving the quality of any products leading to a better marketability of the product and
also increases its storage life. When the materials to be dried happen to be agricultural product, the drying becomes much
more important, as the chances of spoilage of the product through the activity of microorganisms are very high. As drying
is an energy intensive process, use of conventional energy sources may not a desirable choice. When the hygroscopic
material is exposed to air, it will either absorb moisture or desorbs moisture depending on the relative humidity of the air.
The equilibrium moisture content will soon reach when the vapor pressure of water in the material becomes equal to the
partial pressure of water in the surrounding air. The equilibrium moisture is, therefore, important in the drying since this is
the minimum moisture to which the material can be dried under a given set of drying conditions. The present study
involves a solar dryer, in which the solar energy is collected by solar collectors and transferred to the drying medium which
is air. Solar dryers are classified into three main categories, as shown in Figure 1 [5].

Sharma et al. [6] experimentally compared the performance of three types of dryers namely; cabinet type of
natural convection solar dryer, multistacked natural convection solar dryer and the indirect type of multisacked forced
convection solar dryer. The comparison was based on removal of the moisture content and the weight loss of chillies
before and after drying process. It is concluded that indirect forced convection solar dryer was faster when compared to
both natural convection cabinet and the multisacked solar dryer. Cigdem et al. [7] also experimentaly stuided the
performance of forced convection solar dryer which was used to dry banana. The dryer was equipped with electric power
fan, and auxillary heater inside the drying chamber. Based on evaluation, this type of dryers shortened the drying time and
improved the quality of the dried products. Skinner et al [8] studied the performance of drying system consisting from a
solar collector covered with plastic sheet and connected to drying tunnel to dry banana. Three fans were used to supply hot
air directly to drying tunnel. The banana to be dried were spread in one layer on plastic net in drying tunnel to receive
energy from both hot air supplied by the collector and the incident solar radiation. The results showed that drying bananas
using this dryer took shorter time, which is 5 days compared to natural sun drying which needed 5-7 days. Hawlader et al.
[9] compared the drying process using natural convection solar dryer and forced convection solar dryer. Mass and moisture
content of the apple, guava and papaya with different thickness were analysed during the experiment. It is concluded that
the drying rate of forced convection dryer is higher than that for natural convection dryer. Incident solar radiation affects
the performance of the solar dryers. Hassanain [10] examined the effect of incident solar radiation on the temperature of
the solar collector and drying chamber as well as the drying time.

The experimental results revealed that the temperature inside the solar collector increased by solar radiation.
Therefore, Forced convection solar dryer needed shorter time to perform the task compared to natural convection one.
This paper aims to study the performance of solar dryer for fruits and vegetables, and to analyse the moisture content loss
and weight loss (mass of the material as a function of time) of fruits during the drying process by comparing with natural
convection and forced convection solar dryers.

Impact Factor (JCC): 6.1964 NAAS Rating: 4.13

A Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Natural and 91
Forced Convection Solar Dryer for Drying Fruits

SOLAR DRYER: EXPERIMENTS

The proper design of the solar dryer must be implemented in order to achieve the objectives of the research.
The schematic diagram of the solar dryer used in this project is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Schematic Diagram of the Solar Dryer used

This type of solar dryer can be operated both in natural and forced convection. When an experiment is carried out
for force convection, the blower is placed so that the air is forced to flow in the dryer. The body of the dryer is constructed
using the plywood so that the heat losses will be less. A single glass cover with 0.04 m² area is use to trap the heated air
from the solar radiation. In the solar panel, there is absorber plate used was made from aluminium sheet coated with black
paint, as shown in Figure 2. A list of the material used with prices is shown in Table 1. As the air is heated by the solar
radiation, it flows from the solar panel to the drying chamber as shown in the schematic diagram, Figure 1. The fruits are
placed on the trays in the drying chamber for the drying process. The hot air will flow and dry the fruits and vegetables that
are in the drying chamber.

Figure 2: Force Convection Solar Dryer

The solar collector is primarily used to collect the heat from the sun and supply it to the drying chamber.
The absorber plates in the solar air collector are metal sheet and aluminum foil with black colouir surface. LP02
pyranometer was used to measure the incident solar radiation. Thermocouple was used to measure the temperature.
Milligram weighing scale is used to weigh the specimen`s weigh before and after it undergoes drying process. For the
forced convection solar dryer the air is circulated by the blower. This blower forces the air to circulate in the solar dryer.
Stop watch was used to measure the time of the drying process. The fruits and vegetables that used are apple, orange and
mango with different thickness of slices of 5mm, 10mm and 15mm, as shown in Figure 4. The amount is about 1 kg and

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92 Nitesh Pachpor, Priti P Lad, Vinod Atole & Abhishek Nigade

will place on the tray inside the drying chamber for the drying process. The purpose of using different thickness is to
investigate the effect of the thickness on the drying rate. The specimens were dried and tested for 7 hours, and the
experimental data were taken every 30 minutes.

Table 1: List of Materials that Use to Build the

Dryer with Prices
Sr no Particulars Amount
1. GI sheet 3000
2. Iron wire mesh +Iron strip 800
3. Aluminium sheet 500
4. Plastic square pipe 200
5. M.S angle 500
6. M.S rod 450
7. Glass plate 450
8. Blower 1000
9. Dull black paint + White paint 200
10. Screw + nut 20
Total 6670

MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF THE DRYER

Moisture Content

The moisture content of fruits and vegetables can be calculated using equation 1, where Mc is the Moisture
content of the product, (g water / g dry mass) is Mt Mass of the product at time t, g and is Mb Bone dry mass, g.

Mc = (1)

Amount of Moisture to be Removed from the Product

It can be calculated using equation 2 where, (Mw) is the amount of moisture to be removed from product, (Mi) is
Mass of the product before drying, (Mf) is the Mass of the product after drying

( )
Mw = (2)

Quantity of Heat Needed to Evaporate the H2O

It can be obtained using equation 3, where Q is the Amount of energy required for drying process, kJ; hfg = Latent
heat of evaporation, kJ/g H2O.

Q= Mw * hfg (3)

Useful Energy from Solar Collector

Where, FR is the heat removal factor of the collector, and (It) is the incident solar radiation [W/m2]

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The experimental Results for Weigh Loss Forced convection solar dryer showed better results than natural
convection solar dryer in term of weight loss. The highest weight loss occurred with slices thickness 7 mm for orange and
sapota as shown in Figures 3, 4.

Impact Factor (JCC): 6.1964 NAAS Rating: 4.13

A Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Natural and 93
Forced Convection Solar Dryer for Drying Fruits

Figure 3: Weight Loss of Orange with Thickness 7 mm with Time

Figure 4: Weight Loss of Sapota with Thickness 7 mm with Time

Experimental Results for Moisture Content

The moisture content of fruits and vegetables was decreasing with time in all experiments due to solar incident
radiation. It was observed that the drying rate became faster at high moisture content. Forced convection dryer showed also
better result in termination of removing the moisture content, and the drying process was faster than natural convection.
The experimental result showed that the highest moisture content loss occurred to 5mm slices as well, as it shown in Figure
5, 6

Figure 5: Moisture Content of Orange with Thickness 7mm with Time

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94 Nitesh Pachpor, Priti P Lad, Vinod Atole & Abhishek Nigade

Figure 6: Moisture Content of Sapata with Thickness 7mm with Time

CONCLUSIONS

Drying is the process of moisture removal from the product. Unlike open sun drying method, Solar drying system
is an enclosed system that can keep the food safe from damage from birds, insects, microorganism, pilferage, and
unexpected rainfall. This paper aimed to study the performance of solar dryer for fruits to analyse the moisture content loss
and weight loss of fruits during the drying process by comparing with natural convection and forced convection solar
dryers.

It is concluded that the performance of the drying process in the forced convection solar dryer is better compared
to natural convection solar dryer. This can be attributed to the forced circulation of air which increases the rate of heat
exchange between the air and the product. There are some factors that can affect the drying performance, namely; the
ambient temperature, rate of radiation received by the solar collector, the relative humidity of air and the wind speed of air.

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Impact Factor (JCC): 6.1964 NAAS Rating: 4.13